[camel]

Justy my opinion:
I dont think maxwell is expensive, compared to other in the same lane i use/used.
like cinema and vray licenses.

Only thing i think off is:
tomorrow my boss is going to agree on upgrading to v2 (2 or 4 licenses)

But i have to tell him:
"ehm.. yeah.. i cant show you v2 yet.. the download servers are overloaded last 20 hours.."

So please fix the download issue.. then ill think you'll get our payment tomorrow

[Polyxo]

So from my chair, Maxwell is, um, not expensive. But relative measure notwithstanding, if you use Maxwell professionally, I honestly can't see how you couldn't afford it.

Mike,
people use Maxwell professionally in very different ways.
Yes I needed a render engine and I wanted a very good one.
But Visualization is max.20% of my daily work. As I don't spend all day with rendering
I was happy that Maxwell leaves us alone with all complex concepts of concurrent products.
Using Vray or Mental Ray at no time was an option for me. I am convinced that one can only
work in an efficient way with this kind of tools if one basically does nothing else.
Maxwell actually made it possible to produce good looking renders also for the occasional user.
Still I appreciate when renders take less than a weeks time - that's why I bought several licenses
in order to set up things more flexible and in a network.

And now I would like to upgrade but in a way which doesn't leave a bad taste.

[simmsimaging]

People who consider Maxwell "worth it," I expect. Users like me, who have made a living thanks to it for going on 4 years now.

_Mike

One thing we can probably both agree on - is there there are no users like you Mike

[simmsimaging]

As I recall, my original Maya license was something like $15,000, so I'd complain, yes. I remember that and my SGI Octane together were total something around $45,000. So from my chair, Maxwell is, um, not expensive. But relative measure notwithstanding, if you use Maxwell professionally, I honestly can't see how you couldn't afford it. We manage to scrape the money together for the computers and monitors, and other things we consider "essential" for our work. I think if Maxwell is an essential part of your workflow, and you're making money with it, the upgrade is worth it. And ultimately, that's the measure: it's not the money, it's the value.


_Mike

Can't agree with that and it makes no sense in any other avenue. The value is not separate from the cost, and you have to account for what the market is doing. If everyone charged for render nodes like this it would be a different thing. This type of pricing scheme was overinflated at the outset, grew more so, and that's why the market has driven it down to something it will bear. You can't just decide different.

I did not predict the end of Maxwell btw - just that this is going to sharply curtail possible growth. There will be no way to really measure it obviously, but I predict you won't be seeing Maxwell taking the world by storm with this upgrade.

b

[mverta]

Forgive me, but NL has very tangible, quantifiable ways of tracking the success of Maxwell


And as for "market assessment": honestly, I could give a crap about what anybody else is doing. What I want to know is if the money I'm asked to spend for a product is worth it to me. I pay nearly twice the money for a particular movie theater ticket up the street because it is at least twice the experience to me that any other theater offers. Some people don't know or care about the difference, so they won't pay the price. The market is certainly clear on the average ticket price, and this theater's prices are much higher. But again, it's a value thing. I go to the theater because the presentation is truly the best.

I see this as a direct parallel to Maxwell. I make proportionally more money with Maxwell to justify its expense, which I find modest in any absolute sense anyway. But nonetheless, factoring Maxwell into my cost-of-doing-business spreadsheet finds it unquestionably worth far more than its cost in terms of revenue.

There's no real conversion attempt here: you'll either buy it or you won't. You either already see it as worthwhile or you don't. That it's a major upgrade offering tons of improvements has been as well documented as anything, and that's really all they can do. I, for one, already can't live without stacked layers and texture image controls, plus the improved spectral>RGB. So I certainly can't go back.


_Mike

[JDHill]

NL needs to stop acting like they are doing everyone a favour just by making Maxwell available. The boutique attitude is alienating, not endearing.

Brett, I think you're injecting these negative attitudes into the equation. You have a small company, you have x-number of people, you have certain fixed overhead, so you do the math and project what you think it's going to take to keep things rolling...there's really not any case where you're going to sacrifice sales just because you get some sick pleasure out of antagonizing customers. Now, maybe you figure wrong - and we can debate forever about the business sense of a particular position, but you know what they say about opinions. The characterizations above are just not true though, and they only serve to set up an adversarial environment in a thread like this...people tend to develop a bit of a personal relationship with their software, and snarky comments naturally ensue.

So, if upgrading is not worth it to you, then that's just another business decision - you're going to vote with your wallet, and I support that, but it makes discussing it too much a little redundant; if you're right and the pricing is a bad policy, then that's really a problem that will take care of itself.

Remember too, I've had a horse in this race for a few years now, so I'm not just throwing words around - I don't know exactly how the marketing people do their thing, but I choose to trust them.

[simmsimaging]

Mike: we will never see eye to eye on this entire subject, that is clear. You sing one song and the majority of the CG world another. You know it, and so do I. What can I say? The only thing I will offer here is that there is no tangible way that NL can assess the impact of this upgrade path accurately against other options unless they do both. Nothing I can see will change that fact, although they may or may not hit their own pre-determined sales goals, which is not what I was talking about.

JD: Perhaps the attitude is negative, but that is a how I see it and I'm not going to butter it up for you any more than Mike is inclined to. The whole argument that Mike makes, and that has come out many times in many ways is that Maxwell is worth it anyway. That is the boutique attitude I'm taking about. Mike doesn't even try to justify the price by comparison to the price of competitive render engines, he more less says it's better, and if its good enough for him that's all he needs to know. That is the attitude I'm talking about - and it's okay from a user but not an appealing standpoint for someone looking to make a sale.

Anyway, I'm not even really sure what your are talking about with the rest of the post so I will just say this: I don't make personal relationships with software and I'm not posting to be a bitch about it, I'm posting because it's not "voting with your wallet" in any effective way if I don't explain why. In order to be constructive I'm making my view clear so they understand where their clients are coming at it from - and not just their developers and beta testers and the types of users who will use Maxwell no matter what the conditions.

The short of it is this: one on hand NL is saying 'buy it because it's better and worth it' and on the other trying to say that their pricing is competitive with other engines. The first is questionable to my mind, and the second is patently false IMO.


b

[mverta]

Dude, I'm a customer. I test it BECAUSE I'm a customer. My work parameters/resulting opinions are no less valid than yours. You say it's not worth it, my bank account says it is. So what?

My "loyalty" to Maxwell is a byproduct of its quality, period, end of story. I don't particularly care who makes the best software; I'll use that. And in all this time STILL nobody can demonstrate a better looking engine, so there's nothing to talk about, from my chair. If by boutique you mean "primarily interested in quality, not quantity," then yes, NL and I agree on the approach.

Plus, I mean.. you don't really have a dog in this race. You don't use Maxwell, and when you do, you post the images so much I'm not sure it matters anyway. You're a happy VRay guy, and that's, you know, great.


_Mike

[simmsimaging]

*Deleted*

My assistant just pointed out something really simple and clear. Forums are for asking questions, sharing facts, and getting answers. Not for debates and arguments.

I'll tune in when/if NL changes their pricing structure to match the market and/or my sense of what is fair.

Thanks /b

[mverta]

I'll say something not in favor of Maxwell, if you'd like: NL's servers suck.

However, for other complaints, I direct them at the developers, incessantly and exclusively, thanks to joining the team. I complained passionately about the lack of stacked layers, for example


_Mike

[micheloupatrick]

I'll say something not in favor of Maxwell, if you'd like: NL's servers suck.

That's for sure, but they're going to sort things out in the next days.
I managed to get the Maya plug-in. At least I could see what's new on the Maya side...

[mverta]

My assistant just pointed out something really simple and clear. Forums are for asking questions, sharing facts, and getting answers. Not for debates and arguments.

Really? Better tell the whole world wide web; there are a lot of forum users who will be interested to know they're not supposed be debating various topics. Of course, tell them that, and they'll likely argue and debate it.


_Mike

[sandykoufax]

Downloads are still impossible.

[jrandom]

LOL, Sorry but the rendernode price is clearly the most expensive I have seen to date. New purchase or crossgrade. Next to RenderMan, of course.

Thinking it was the same person set up the Realflow price scheme